by OMAR FINK
Delize gasped, “Yes. Yes. Yes.”
Arty laughed, “Thanks Delize. And just let me add, the offer letter is going to blow you away. It’s even better than I’ve told you. But you need to see it with your own eyes. We’ll ask you to consider the offer, get any advice if you feel the need, and call me back when you’re ready to accept it and sign the letter, and I will have it picked up.”
Delize said, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
Arty laughed again, “Delize this is very real, and you have earned it. We are pretty sure you will soon be making a valuable contribution to our important effort, and we are willing to give you both an excellent and a fair compensation for what you do. Call me back if you have any more questions. We can offer references and free but independent legal counsel if you want. I hope I’ll be welcoming you aboard soon Delize.”
Delize said, “Okay. I don’t know what to say.”
Arty chuckled, “Just read the offer letter and let us know when you’ve decided. Goodbye Delize.”
Delize said, “Goodbye.”
+1 year 10 months, ZURICH, SWITZERLAND
The head of Eileen Gillespie was on the video screen in the AGT conference room. Ulrich Giger said, “Hello Eileen. You know everybody on the call: Sam, Tony, Peter, and Bill are all here. Please let us know how things are going on your end.”
Eileen hesitated, “Our overall mission has been to plan the human migration component on the ground to get people to the elevators. To that end, we designed a triage process that includes: assessment, transportation, housing, medical care, education, and staging for elevator ascension. The process begins with assessment because that may determine the rest of the pathway. We have many temporary, and even some mobile assessment stations already in operation that can perform interviews, and triage locally, and assign paths and priorities. We are most interested in weeding out those who require the most time intensive medical and education attention. Those people get routed to medical and education centers where they will be prepared to enter back into the general migration stream when they are ready. We’ve adapted existing hospitals and schools to handle these parts. Everybody in the migration will require at least a full medical screening and primer on living in space. Much of that is being done with automated systems. We’ve adapted a variety of transportation and housing resources to create tributaries that flow toward the elevator base stations. There are implementation and construction teams working all over the world to build up the needed infrastructure, and keep it increasing for several years until we’ve maxed out the flow up the elevators, and into the space living quarters.”
Tony Azaria interrupted with, “Eileen, can you tell us when the migration will actually begin?”
Eileen said, “Now. The triage and tributary process is just starting to intake people. We anticipate completion of the first elevator within a few months, and pending acceptance testing of the elevators, people will begin moving up the ribbons in small numbers a few months later. The first habitat should be completed in the middle of next year, but the first inhabitants will begin moving in before it reaches completion as soon as basic life support infrastructure is in place.” She looked at the viewpoint as though waiting for another question.
When no questions came, she continued, “I’m heading up the planning and routing team, and will continue in that function until we can confirm it is no longer needed.”
Eileen was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Any other questions?”
Ulrich Giger waited for several seconds, “That’s it. Thank you, Eileen.”
Eileen responded, “Thank you. Bye.”
Giger pushed a button on the remote control, and the video screen went black. He said, “Okay, next item. We are having some problems with speculation. That is, some people have been buying up resources they think we will need in order to make scalp sales to us at inflated prices. Omega Industries has been the most active in this area, but they have been reasonable in their pricing, so I’m not worried about them. There are several others that may require some action. Tony, Sam, any ideas?”
Tony immediately offered, “We can shut them out by paying their competitors more and leaving them holding what they bought with no buyers, or we can shadow their activity and try to get there before they do. In normal business, this often depends on whether you have lots of money or good intelligence.”
Sam was nodding, “We have both. I’d suggest leveraging our excellent intelligence resources to head them off first, and if that doesn’t work, then do the bypass, and leave them holding the bag.”
Giger said, “Alright. You two work on some ideas in that area and we’ll discuss it more.”
Tony and Sam both nodded at Ulrich, then Ulrich added, “Here’s another issue to consider.” He turned toward the big screen on the wall, and punched a button on the remote control.
A person wearing a Guy Fawkes mask appeared on the screen and began talking, “This is the voice of the Resistance. We don’t believe that Humanity United is actually trying to save human civilization. We do believe that they are trying to take over control of everything, and create a single world government that can run our lives. To that end, they have fabricated the threat of a comet that can destroy us all. They have not released to all of us the astronomical data that supports this claim. They have not released to all of us how they plan to evacuate the planet. They have not released to all of us how they can possibly afford to fund this impossibly big effort. They have not released to all of us whether or not they think they can actually succeed in evacuating everybody, or if they simply plan to save only a select few. Without full transparency, their claims and plans are not believable.”
The Guy Fawkes mask paused for a second then resumed, “We have the following demands for Humanity United: you must disclose everything, you must release any astronomical and scientific data that has been used to support your claims so that everybody can examine it fully, you must release all financial data on HU coin, and how it is being used to purchase everything, and what you intend to do with all the resources you are accumulating, you must allow full transparency of the HU guidance council members and their actions and their connections to outside organizations and individuals. We make these demands in the name of all humanity. We expect a quick response. We urge all people everywhere to join our cause. Rise up and fight for your rights alongside of others who are like you.”
Ulrich punched the remote button and the image disappeared. He said, “Everybody needs to stay aware of this group and their actions. We don’t yet have a good assessment of how much influence they have or how dangerous they might be. Stay on your toes people.”
8 Living Space
“Ezekiel saw the wheel
Way up in the middle of the air
Ezekiel saw the wheel
Way up in the middle of the air
And the little wheel run by faith
And the big wheel run by the grace of God
A wheel in a wheel
Way up in the middle of the air”
— Folk song
+2 years 1 month, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
Lee Martin spoke into the camera, “Good day. This is Lee Martin, coming to you from Geneva, Switzerland, and today I’m going to be talking to Marco Lagorio about building habitats for living in space. We know our first space elevators are being built, but in addition to getting people up into space, we also need a place for them to live. Marcello Lagorio used to work for a company called ‘Space Habitat Engineering’ but as with so many companies these days, it was bought up by HU, and Marco, as his friends call him, now is in charge of the HU project to build those habitats.”
The camera pulled back as Lee turned to look at Marco, who sat in a comfortable looking chair on the other side of a coffee table in between them. Lee said, “Hello Marco. Where should we start?”
Marco said, “Hello World. And Lee is correct, everybody should just call me Marco.” He smiled broadly around the set, then return
ed to Lee, who smiled back at him.
Marco continued, “First, let’s describe what we are going to be talking about. Our space habitats, our future homes, will be giant wheels in space that rotate to provide gravity. Each of these wheels will hold a population of millions. The first wheel we build will only house about one million people, but we have plans for wheels that house as many as five to ten million.”
Lee interrupted, “Marco, what determines that number, how many people will be in each wheel?”
Marco replied, “The number is determined by a combination of factors, mostly the size of the wheel, and how much space we decide to allocate for each person. There are constraints for small wheels because we need a certain range of gravity to make sure we stay healthy without needing constant exercise. For small wheels, the speed of rotation needed to provide gravity becomes an issue with making people dizzy, but these big wheels do not have that problem. The big wheels we are designing will be around five kilometers across, and about a kilometer wide. They will have over three hundred floors above the ground floor which is the outside rim of the wheel, and they will provide spacious accommodations for five million people, or more spartan living space for up to ten million people.”
Lee said, “Wow, they’re huge!”
Marco smiled and replied, “Yes, they are, and they will take a lot of time and effort to build each one. But with millions of people starting to move up the space elevators soon, we will be building them for many years. Our mining operation on the Moon is already throwing construction materials out into space, and robotic factories are processing it into the pieces and parts we need to build and furnish a habitat. Robot machines do all the work, with human supervisors monitoring their work and making adjustments as needed. It’s not that different from watching a high rise building go up here on Earth. First, we build a framework of girder-like beams and shear walls. Then we begin to add exterior cladding just like a brick veneer on Earth, except our cladding is many feet thick to provide protection from both radiation and particle impacts.”
Lee asked, “What’s a shear wall?”
Marco replied, “It’s just a strong interior wall that adds stiffness to the framework. On Earth, they help prevent building collapse, and provide some earthquake protection. Here in space, the dynamics are quite different, but just like on Earth, they help to stiffen the structure and add integrity to it.”
Lee queried, “What happens next?”
Marco responded, “As the framework is completed, we start to add the cladding which is composed of many layers, is many feet thick, and eventually forms an outer skin that we need to contain the atmosphere. We have to build into the internal framework all the infrastructure we need, which is mostly concerned with life support functions. We need air to breath, water to drink, and food to eat. And we must be able to process and recirculate all of these.”
Lee asked “Where does all the air, water, and food come from?”
Marco said, “The air and water are extracted from the process of mining asteroids for the building construction materials, and the food will need to be grown onsite. The primary source of food is likely to be algae, although we are going to try fish farming and some other projects. None of these things has ever been done in space before, so many of them are considered experimental. But we are confident we can provide the necessary food nutrition from algae alone. It will require several different kinds of algae, but it can be done. The biggest obstacle at this point is simply finding new ways to make the algae enjoyable to consume. We are using a variety of types of food made from the algae. Our engineers and nutritionists are working on ways to make algae mimic these different foods. So, eventually we think you’ll be eating steak and lasagna and baked goods that are all made from algae.”
Lee responded, “That’s amazing Marco. What kind of timetable do you have for building the habitats?”
Marco replied, “By the end of this month, the first elevator will have completed testing and the first waves of migrating people will be coming up the elevators shortly after that. We think it will take about six months to complete the wheel, but people can begin moving in before it’s totally done. In the mean time, they’ll be living on the smaller crew wheels we’ve built for construction bases. Our first habitat will be completed in about five months. Once that is done, we plan to push it out into an orbit that takes it past Mars and then return to Earth again. Somewhere along the way, smaller tugboat-like utility wheels based with the habitat will snag an asteroid suitable for mining, and begin extracting materials to build a second large wheel that will be attached to the first. Eventually, we’ll push some of the wheels out even farther in layers like a series of escalators that will provide a kind of conveyor belt for people out into the asteroid belt.”
Lee said, “Conveyor belt? I don’t understand.”
Marco explained, “You step onto an escalator and ride it up to the top. Then you step off and walk over to another escalator, and step onto it and ride up even higher. In the meantime, the first escalator rolls around at the top, and goes back down on the underneath side to pick up new passengers at the bottom. In the same general manner, people will move up a space elevator into space. Then they will move over to a habitat wheel, which will eventually be moved into an orbit that takes them out to Mars. At some point, one of the habitats will move out into an orbit that takes them out from Mars into the edge of the asteroid belt. Another habitat will take them from the inner edge of the asteroid belt out into the middle of the belt. At each step, new habitats will be being built, and as people move outward into space, they will leave empty living quarters behind them. The empty habitats will orbit back closer to Earth, and pick up more people, and then orbit back out toward the asteroid belt. There will be hundreds of rotating wheel habitats in orbits that create a spider web like mesh of intersecting rings, with people constantly moving outward, step by step. Remember, these orbital trajectories are not perfect circles, they are more like ellipses, and the habitats orbit back to their original starting point. So we’ll have many overlapping elliptical orbits that let people move from one layer of orbits to the next and so on.”
Lee smiled, “And this will take many years. What a fantastic picture of the future you have drawn for us, Marco. Thank you.”
+2 years 2 months, GEOSYNCHRONOUS ORBIT OVER SINGAPORE
Keel O’Donnell had finished moving a payload package from the top of the space elevator to a staging area, and was returning for his next load, when something went wrong. Another handler with two helper bots was turning to get into a new position. Keel shouted into his headset, “STOP, your exo-arm...”, but it was too late. When the handler turned his pod with the exo-arm still extended, it caught the edge of one of the helpers, turning the bot, and that action sent the payload floating off into space directly toward the elevator platform.
Keel had both of his bots in follow mode. He pushed the control yoke sideways, and mashed the thruster throttle to full. His pod and both bots spun, and began chasing the runaway package. He barked into his headset, “I’ll get the payload, you stabilize your bot.” There was a muted acknowledgment.
When his pod and bots had finished the turn, and were chasing the runaway, he set both bots to target the package, and included the instruction to “hold and brake”. Then he put his hands into the exo-arm grips, and extended them fully. The elevator platform behind the runaway package was getting larger.
Both bots closed from the sides, and grabbed the payload and began braking thrusts. Keel pulled back on the throttle to begin his own braking, then grabbed the payload with his own exo-arms. As soon as he was sure he had a good grip, he pulled the throttle all the way back into full reverse thrust. The platform was still growing rapidly in the background.
Keel shouted at the helper bots to apply maximum braking thrust, and pushed an override button on his panel to allow exceeding normal limits. The thrusters on all three pods were now spitting mist in solid streams toward the platform, whic
h finally slowed, and then stopped growing completely. He told all systems to return to normal, and turned to check on the other handler.
When he was through, he muttered under his breath, “I need some music.” Then louder, “Computer, music, find me something about big wheels.”
The computer replied, “’Proud Mary’, by Creedence Clearwater Revival, lyrics contain a reference to big wheels that are turning.”
Keel said, “That’s perfect. Play that.”
The computer responded with a driving rhythm and simple guitar melody line. Keel began tapping his fingers on the edge of the surface in front of him. The song kept going, and Keel began singing along with the refrain line. Out in space, the giant wheel habitat was turning slowly, like it was rolling down a pathway to the stars.
